DAILY GK UPDATED 08-DECEMBER-2015

India
is set to sign a deal with Japan this week on the country’s first bullet train,
with Tokyo financing the bulk of the high-speed rail project between Mumbai and
Ahmedabad through a $8 billion loan, a leading Japanese business daily reported
on Tuesday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart
Shinzo Abe will issue a joint statement on the deal on Saturday during latter’s
visit to India,The Nikkeireported.

Abe will convey an
offer of more than $8.1 billion in official Japanese lending for the roughly
$14.6 billion project to link Mumbai and Ahmedabad with 505 km railway line, it
said.

Florida Mayor bans Donald Trump after comment on Muslims

DAILY GK UPDATED 08-DECEMBER-2015

A Florida Mayor said
he is banning Donald Trump from his city after the Republican presidential
candidate called for the US to stop Muslims from entering the country.Playing
off of Mr. Trump’s earlier words, St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman tweeted
yesterday that he was banning Mr. Trump “until we fully understand the
dangerous threat posed by all Trumps.”

Trump’s proposed ban
is in response to what he called hatred among “large segments of the Muslim
population” toward Americans.Mr. Trump said the ban should be implemented
“until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous
threat it poses.” Mr. Trump’s proposal was quickly condemned by other
Republican and Democratic presidential candidates.

SEBI orders freezing bank, demat accounts of Sunplant Forgings

DAILY GK UPDATED 08-DECEMBER-2015

Markets regulator SEBI
has ordered attachment of bank and demat accounts of Sunplant Forgings, its
promoters and directors, to recover dues worth over Rs 17 crore.Also, the
company and its promoters and directors — Abhinandan Kumar Singh, Sumanta
Singh, Neeraj Pathak and Arup Kumar De — had been barred from the securities
markets for four years and this ban would continue till the completion of
refund to investors.

Similarly, it has directed depositories
—NSDL and CDSL — to attach all demat accounts of the defaulters.In a separate
order, the regulator has slapped a penalty of Rs 5 lakh on Mangal Keshav
Capital for alleged failure to make timely disclosures about its acquisition of
shares in Arms Paper Ltd.Mangal Keshav Capital has violated the provisions
related to PIT (Prohibition of Insider Trading) norm and SAST (Substantial
Acquisition of shares) Regulations, SEBI said.

RBI governor optimistic about passage of GST

DAILY GK UPDATED 08-DECEMBER-2015

Optimistic about the
passage of long pending GST Bill in the Parliament, RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan
has told American investors that continued focus on fiscal consolidation and
inflation will mean they will reach their targeted goal.Mr. Rajan said RBI’s
continued focus on fiscal consolidation and inflation will mean that they will
reach their targeted goals, according to a USIBC media statement.

During the interaction, Mr. Rajan said he
is optimistic about the passage of goods and services tax (GST) and the
opportunities for compromise that will help realise the goals of the GST - a
unified tax market, improvement in tax collection and broadening the tax base,
USIBC said.USIBC applauded the Indian government for its recent reform
introduced in private sector banking that permits the total foreign holding in
private banks to have a composite cap of 74 per cent and eliminates existing
sub-limits for FDI and FII capital (which were at 49 per cent).

World’s first biologically powered chip created

DAILY GK UPDATED 08-DECEMBER-2015

In
a major breakthrough, researchers at Columbia Engineering have harnessed the
molecular machinery of living systems to power an integrated circuit.They
achieved this by integrating a conventional solid-state complementary
metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) integrated circuit with an artificial lipid
bilayer membrane containing adenosine triphosphate (ATP)-powered ion pumps.In
living systems, ATP is used to transport energy from where it is generated to
where it is consumed in the cell.

“In combining a biological electronic
device with CMOS, we will be able to create new systems not possible with
either technology alone,” said study leader professor Ken Shepard.While other
groups have harvested energy from living systems, Ken Shepard and his team are
exploring how to do this at the molecular level, isolating just the desired
function and interfacing this with electronics.

Tata Comm concludes deal to sell Neotel fixed line to Vodacom

DAILY GK UPDATED 08-DECEMBER-2015

Tata
Communications on Tuesday said it will sell majority of its subsidiary Neotel’s
fixed line assets to Vodacom South Africa but will retain control of licences
including spectrum.The deal was originally signed in May last year wherein
Vodafone’s South African subsidiary Vodacom had reached an agreement to buy
Neotel, controlled by Tata Communications, for 7 billion rand (about Rs 3,200
crore).In dollar terms, the value of transaction at that time was around $676
million which has come down to $479 million due to depreciation in value of
South African rand. Neotel, under the revised pact, will offer a roaming
arrangement to all the mobile network operators in the country, including
Vodacom.

“We confirm that there
has been a positive outcome in discussions with Vodacom, to conclude a modified
transaction structure. In this restructured transaction, Vodacom will acquire
the majority of Neotel’s assets related to its fixed line business as a going
concern, excluding Neotel’s licenses (which include spectrum),” the company
said in a statement.